Martin

Tips on Beating Other Players at the Online Casino

Everyone likes the idea of winning at the casino, but not everyone can win. The casino will always make sure that the games are set up so that they can make a profit. However, if you play against other people, then there will always be a person that wins as well as the casino taking some of the money. This may be something that you prefer to try, but it is worth following some tips to maximise your chances of winning some money.

Practice first

It is a good idea to make sure that you practice before you play a game online for money. It may be a game that you have played a lot before. However, if you have never played it online before, then it can be a good idea to have some free games online before you pay to play. This will give you experience of playing online as it can be different to playing normally. If there is a free room on the site you intend to play on, even better. You will get experience of playing in that specific room.

Check the rules

It is a good idea to find out what the rules are of the game before you play. You may be familiar with how to play the game normally but you should check to see whether the online version is the same or different. It may have some special rules or just a slight variation. Some casinos, such as http://www.casinomidas.com.au/ may have different rules to another one. [Read more…] about Tips on Beating Other Players at the Online Casino

Check Out the Biggest Lotteries from Around the World

By Martin

Lottery fans, it’s time to get excited: lotteries are getting bigger and bigger, and this means that there’s a chance that you might be the lucky winner. Well, that is: if you actually win. But you can’t win if you don’t play. If you’re looking for reasons to get motivated about the lottery, we hope that this will be your guide.

You see, there are lotteries all around the world. Just about every country you can think of has a lottery, but we wanted to see who had the biggest ones.

The winner has to be Spain’s “Sorteo Extraordinario de Navidad”, the Spanish Christmas Lottery. It truly is the world’s largest lottery. In 2012, the total prizes shattered 2.52 billion Euros! The main jackpot and cash prize was well over 700 million Euros. This is a huge lottery for sure, and many people have gotten lucky enough to win the 4 million Euros.

Spain isn’t the only country that has a lottery. The United States actually has multiple lotteries of note. One is the Mega Millions, which went up to 640 million USD in 2012. The cash payout was 474 million. There was also the Powerball, which was split by two tickets and had a cash payout of 384.7 million dollars.

Moving back to Europe, there’s the EuroMillions. This lottery had a huge jackpot of 161.7 million pounds. It was at this amount when someone won in 2011 — wow! [Read more…] about Check Out the Biggest Lotteries from Around the World

The Final Table of the Tournament – Yes, You Can Be Here!

By Martin

The final table of the poker tournament is where everyone wants to be. Of course, bad tournament play will eventually come back to haunt you. You might get deep into the tournament by just winging it, but it will take a more refined strategy to make the final table consistently. Remember that we’re just as interested in the long term poker game as we are the short term one. This means that you really need to sharpen your skills, focus, and look at ways to be profitable while surviving the match.

You see, tournaments attract a lot of players. Not all of these players are going to be sharks, even though a lot of people make that initial assumption. The reality is that you’re going to be playing against fish, shark, and just about everyone in between. It means that you might have a hard time really getting a good “read” on people, because you’re going to be moving all around the tournament. Multi-table tournaments are even harder than SNG’s because of how many people you will be exposed to.

So, let’s address two different scenarios: you are playing the tournament and you want to break into the final table, and then the scenario that assumes you’ve already made it to the final table.

Breaking In (Scenario One):

No matter how big the field is, you have to remember that everything is a matter of numbers. Eventually, the big bad poker players will make mistakes, bail out, get tired, or surpass you. That’s all there is to it. Loose players that rush in trying to get chips will eventually find that their luck runs out. Playing tight at the earliest stages of the tournament seems to be your best option. How tight you play depends on you, but you really want to stay away from garbage hands. Just because you saw Doyle Brunson make 7-2 off-suit work doesn’t mean that you need to try to mirror that at all. The truth is that you probably aren’t a professional poker player. Sticking to basic theory until you get to adjust your strategy usually works out better than thinking you can copy what the guys do at the WSOP. They have literally millions of hands worth of practice under their belts. If you get that obsessed about poker, you can feel free to freestyle. Until then, you need to stick to what works.

The idea here is that you don’t want to try to stand out by getting as many chips as possible. Everyone is going to be doing that. You need to think in terms of chip preservation. Indeed, you want to try to survive as long as possible. This isn’t something that sounds like a good idea — it’s the best idea that you can plant in your head. You absolutely want to be able to move around like that, because any other alternative just isn’t going to make sense. If you go for the big chi runs and you’re wrong, you’re going to lose big. Then you have to spend the rest of the tournament trying to get back to your original stack and then some. It’s better to be stingy with raises rather than the guy that blows all of his chips before the blinds have even gotten serious. Don’t be that guy.

The type of tournament that you’re in matters as well. Freerolls tend to attract a lot of fish. You cannot assume that poker newbies live and breathe this stuff. They tend to be “TV players” that hear about all of the money you can make with online poker and they certainly want a slice.

Playing that way just isn’t going to get you the type of money that you’re looking for. It’s better to think about how you can strategically survive.

Let’s move on to the other scenario: being actually at the table. [Read more…] about The Final Table of the Tournament – Yes, You Can Be Here!

Summer is Coming – and so are the Poker Tournaments!

By Martin

Summer is one of our favorite times of the year, for a lot of different reasons. There’s really nothing like being to chill, hang out with some friends, and go toe to toe with some fierce poker players. Poker again? Absolutely — we’re crazy about poker. Admit it — even if you’re a newbie, you’re probably looking for the thrill that comes from really competing against people. There are a lot of competitive things to do in life, but none really hit the spot like poker. You have so much data to study, so many people to play, and a lot of great wins if you manage to figure out a strategy that really works for you. Gone are the days where you had to just hope everything falls into place when it comes down to your entertainment. Poker is something that you can do online while making money along the way. That’s really exciting, right? Absolutely!

The time is right to look into great poker, but you might be afraid to dive in. This is where the tournaments come into play. You see, tournaments are designed to be open to just about anyone and eyesore. If you really have a weak poker game, you’ll find that freerolls are where it’s at. There will be people that are weaker than you, and this can raise your confidence. Don’t worry if that sounds mean — the other players are looking to take your chips too!

The nice part about a tournament is that you can really play a lot of hands. For newbies, this is good because it really lets you turn over hands quickly, learning what works and what doesn’t work. That whole concept of poker position matters a well. Playing in a tournament will make you very aware of position very quickly. You don’t have to be the best poker player in the world to place “in the money” when it comes to a tournament. The key here is that you want to outlast the competition. Don’t always go for the “sure bet” on the table. Let other people get risky. You’re trying to stay in the game for the long term, which is just as important as getting those big pots. As the blinds creep up and people make even more irrational decisions based on fear of loss, you’ll eventually come out ahead. There are plenty of guides that just focus on tournament play, so don’t think that you have to really stop with this one. You need to build a good strategy in the tournaments in order to do better and better. Of course, don’t beat yourself up if your tournament game is rusty from the beginning. Everyone gets good at poker in their own time, and you just might need more time than other people.

There’s no need to fear tournament play at all. The whole point of the tournament is to get you to “loosen up” in your mind. You’re a poker player now, and there’s always a chance to win more money. No, you will not always win. This is something that you’re going to have to eventually cope with. If you’re willing to keep practicing and getting better, then it’s highly likely that you’ll win a lot of money at poker over time. However, if you’re someone that’s easily pushed back because of losses, then poker really might not be your game after all. Good luck!

Making the Move to Online Poker Without Losing Your Cool

By Martin

Stressed at the thought of playing online poker, even though you’ve been doing awesome in your local poker room? You’re in luck — we know exactly what it’s like to feel like a fish out of water just because you made the switch from offline poker to online poker. Yet the temporary discomfort will unlock so many different benefits. Indeed, when you choose online poker, you’re essentially choosing convenience. You just need to make sure that you’re thinking about the bigger picture when you make the decision to move forward. That’s really all there is to it. Thankfully, you have a lot of chances to get things underway rather than feeling like you’re just spinning your wheels. The last thing that you want to do is miss out on the convenience of being able to win real money at home.

That’s right, we said it — if you play online, you have just as many chances to win serious money as you did if you were playing locally. That’s what attracts so many people to the world of online poker in the first place. However, there are a few things that you’re going to need to do in order to keep the stress low. You don’t want to lose your cool and end up blowing your chances at some good poker.

First and foremost, you want to start at LOW STAKES. Now, we put this in caps because we’ve heard way too many stories of people that think that they can make big money online the way they’ve been doing well in their local card games. This is really a recipe for disaster. You might think that you’re going to be the biggest, baddest poker player in the game but this isn’t the case at all. You will want to make sure that you are starting out low. This is so that you can just focus on playing great poker. It gives you a chance to start with a small bankroll. After all, if you’re as good as you think you are, and then your bankroll should swell up in virtually no time at all.

Online poker deals with players from all over the world, with tools that they use to refine their game to a razor blade’s edge. You’re in for a tough battle, but that should excite you not scare you. In other words, you’ll find yourself getting better just because the opposition is so much fiercer than what you’re probably dealing with in your backyard.

Moving up the stakes slowly lets you really get used to the way that online poker is played. There’s nothing wrong with going with low stakes poker. You can still make a lot of money playing low stakes. In fact, many professionals got their start grinding the low stakes poker tables.

You also want to try to invest in tools that are going to let you get even better. For example, you can go with a heads up display that will show you all of the data that you can stand. A program like Hold’Em Manager lets you see all of your opponents and study the hands that they have played against you. You can see the stats displayed right next to each player, which means that you can get a better idea for the players’ images without too much thought.

What these programs also bring to the table is the chance to review past hands. This is something that’s going to be absolutely critical when you’re trying to become a serious poker player. You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t take at least a little bit of time to figure out where you’ve been. That’s just the way it is.

If you’re going to look at old hands, you might want to be able to sit and take notes as well. You need to see any weaknesses in your game so that you can get them closed without too much hassle.

You might feel that software is cheating but we’re here to assure you that it isn’t cheating at all. As long as the site’s terms of service allows the use of external software programs, then it’s fair play. It would be different if the site blocked you from it.

You will need to also take advantage of some of the features the poker sites give you, like the ability to take notes. Being able to see all of your notes for each and every player. This means that you’ll be able to see any information you need to know in advance. There’s also a chance to color code players. This can come in handy in a hurry, especially when it comes to selecting tables. What if you were to tag all of the shark players with amazing poker skills red and all of the weaker players green? This means that when you see a table of green coded players, you know that the chances of you making good money are a lot higher than at a table full of red players.

You want to make sure that you’re taking your online poker game seriously. This is not something that you really can do while you’re watching TV. It’s just not going to work out very well. It will lead to trouble, and that’s not something that we’re trying to have right now. You get to really build a poker career that pleases you.

After all, isn’t it about your entertainment and pleasure at the end of the day? You want to make sure that you’re building the best environment for great poker that you can. If you follow the tips in this guide, you should be just fine. Don’t worry about being the master of the poker universe in a few sessions. That just won’t happen. However, if you take your poker game seriously and work on ways to improve, chances are good that you’ll be a player to watch in virtually no time at all. Good luck!

A Look at Five Card Draw Poker

By Martin

If you’re trying to diversify your poker portfolio, you really need to learn five card draw. It’s really one of the oldest forms of poker, and plenty of people know how to play it. Just because the casinos aren’t covering it doesn’t mean that it’s not important anymore. If you go to a party and they’re playing Five Card Draw, you really need to know what you’re actually playing.

Here’s what you need to know about the game.

The game is basically split into a lot of variations — you have California Draw, where there’s no restrictions on the cards needed to open or win. This is pretty cool because when it comes to high stakes, you have lots of chances to bluff and win big money.

The game is played with a regular 52 card deck, and you get up to six players. You can have even 8 players if you really wanted to, but this makes for a messed up game. Six is the optimal number here, people.

Before the deal phase, each player puts an agreed ante into the pot — this is like a forced bet, for all of you poker newbies. The ante will be the same as the minimum bet. The cards are then shuffled and cut, with the dealer dealing all cards face down clockwise one at a time until each player has five cards. This eliminates accusation of cheating from the dealer. There’s a betting round that begins after the players have looked at their cards. If everyone passes (checks) in this first round, then the cards are thrown in. The turn to deal passes to the left, the pot stays where it is, and you go through another ante session.

If you’re going to play a fixed limit game, the number of raises after the initial opening bet is going to be limited to just four.

You do have a draw phase, where you will need to figure out how to improve your hand. You can discard some cards and get new ones. The play starts from the dealer’s left, with each player choosing how many cards they intend to replace. They will then discard that number of cards face down and have them replaced by the dealer. You can discard anywhere from no cards up to three cards.

The second betting round gets pretty fierce — this is where most of the action will be. The showdown comes after the second betting round, if the pot hasn’t already been won.

It’s all about making your best hand possible. So standard hand rankings do still apply here. If you’re coming from Texas Hold’Em, then this shouldn’t be too difficult to remember.

There are some cool variations of Five Card Draw that you should definitely know about. There’s the variation that lets you draw more than three cards, which is pretty cool. You can discard and draw four cards if the fifth card is an ace. Other variations let you discard all five cards if that’s what you want.

There’s also variations that let you change the betting rounds to include blinds as well as antes.

There’s even Jacks or Better Five Card Draw, which is where a hand has to be as good as a pair of jacks to open the betting.

Keep in mind that you could open with two pair and still satisfy the “pairs or better”. The next round can include anything, but the first opener has to be from someone with “jacks or better”.

Five Card Draw is something that definitely of benefits. If you’re going to play with any type of table game, this is the one that you need to look for. Check it out today!

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